


And the Blood Runs Cold

by givemeunicorns



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Mad Cad, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Temporary Character Death, no betas we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:13:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23535109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givemeunicorns/pseuds/givemeunicorns
Summary: Who was this Ukatoa, this minor slithering mockery in the face of Melora, mother of all things, to try and take back what was rightfully hers?~~~During the fight on the Balleater, Caduceus Clay rethinks his views on death and revenge.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 48





	And the Blood Runs Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little snippet of Mad Cad I found while I was cleaning out my documents.

Death was not new to Caduceus Clay. He had lived in the shades of it all his life, a spoke in the wheel of time that carried ever onward. Death was so much a part of his life, he'd never really learned to fear it as most people did, the all encompassing dread of one's own unmaking. Death meant life, a simple step between one journey and the next. Death had always been neutral in his world. Not right or wrong, simply a fact of nature, like a summer storm or a wildfire. A year ago, Caduceus would have said that death was death, there was no good or bad.

On the wharf of a pirate city, Caduceus learned the difference. Avantika was the vessel of something dark and mistrustful, and he'd watched her pull that same darkness out of a man he called his friend. Fjord longed for belonging, for power in a life where was all but powerless, and she had stoked those urges like a flames. The snap of her neck rang out in the quiet, and Caduceus felt a shameful sense of relief.

In a cell beneath a city of near eternal night, Caduceus learned the difference. Caleb's blood ran hot between his fingers, the wizard's breath shallow and pained beneath his palm. The woman screamed and her bones snapped and Caduceus watched, unflinching as Essek crushed the life from her. As a life was crushed from her, the wild flame of her life snuffed out in one blow, Caduceus felt a sense of justice done.

In the ruined temple under Rexxentrum, Caduceus learned the difference. Yasha had torn Obann apart with her bare hands, her rage a brutal, physical thing. They did not move to help her with the deed, like a pack of wolves, filled with the knowledge that this was their fight, but it was Yasha's kill. That, after all the blood and fear and pain of the day, this was a wrong being righted. Her screams had echoed off the stone and Caduceus was filled with uncanny sense of satisfaction; hateful, clawing certainty in his stomach that this was a good death, a right death.

The sounds that Beau made could only be described as howling, a wounded, animal sound of grief and rage that could be heard even over the rain and the fighting and crash of waves on the hull. Caduceus rushed up the stairs, following the sound, his heart thundering in the hollow of his chest. He slide on the deck, slick with rain and blood as she threw herself on another of the assailants. There was no finesse in her motions now, none of the usual calculated motions. She leapt on to the back of the nearest creature, pummeling it with fists and pure unfiltered fury.

It took him only a moment to locate the source of her madness.

Fjord's body lay on the deck unmoving, limbs splayed at odd angles. His eyes were open, lustrous gold and lifeless, and something capsized in Caduceus. He had always found the Wildmother in the softness of the grass and the whispering of trees. He was not ignorant her violence, nature was very violent, as he'd told Caleb once, but now, for the first time in his life, he understood it. He could feel her rage. It seized his heart, at once burning cold and blazing hot, the rage that comes from the storm winds, from lightening strikes and black and churning sea waves. Who was this Ukatoa, this minor slithering mockery in the face of Melora, mother of all things, to try and take back what was rightfully hers? To think this domain was his? Caduceus cast out a hand, sending a wave of spectral beetles, scuttling and screaming in a frenzied swarm towards their attackers. _Consume_ , he willed them, _devour_. Death had no master in but in the moment, Caduceus was it's will, a channel for the cold fury of a life wrongly taken. These deaths were Melora's boon and he was her champion. 


End file.
